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Michael Messer is
hailed as the greatest acoustic slide guitar player this side of
the pond, has a set of strings named after him and has been voted
‘Acoustic
Blues Artist of the Year’ at the British Blues Awards. You get the
picture.
No doubt he could have used his two-hour set to show off his technical
know-how
to the veteran guitar players in the audience and no doubt he would have
received
the same rapturous applause. But though his albums are bought by people
heavily
into instrumentation, he doesn’t like to perform just to the
connoisseur.
He likes to make music for ordinary folk too.
Accompanied by the brilliant Ed Genis, he paid awesome homage to the
great American
blues masters from pre-war Mississippi delta to post-war Chicago. With
“a steel rod,
a piece of glass and some flat copper” he caressed and bent the strings
of his vast array
of guitars to generate some of the most memorable blues I’ve ever heard,
never once
letting his expertise eclipse the spirit of the songs. His vocals were
superb.
He sang the old standards of the genre about sorrow, hardship and lonely
nights
with spine-tingling conviction and the haunting lyrics of Crow Blues,
written by long-time collaborator Terry Clarke, will stay with me
forever.
But we were never in danger of getting bogged down in the Delta swamps.
Whenever we felt ourselves slipping under we were rescued by
foot-stomping
versions of songs like Write Me A Few Short Lines or the very familiar
Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms, and his inclination to mix his blues
with
more contemporary sounds of Hawaiian, jazz and rock meant that the
evening was a revelation to all.
Jackie Larmour - Aldershot News - February 2004
Michael Messer is
hailed as the greatest acoustic slide guitar player this side of
the pond, has a set of strings named after him and has been voted
‘Acoustic
Blues Artist of the Year’ at the British Blues Awards. You get the
picture.
No doubt he could have used his two-hour set to show off his technical
know-how
to the veteran guitar players in the audience and no doubt he would have
received
the same rapturous applause. But though his albums are bought by people
heavily
into instrumentation, he doesn’t like to perform just to the
connoisseur.
He likes to make music for ordinary folk too.
Accompanied by the brilliant Ed Genis, he paid awesome homage to the
great American
blues masters from pre-war Mississippi delta to post-war Chicago. With
“a steel rod,
a piece of glass and some flat copper” he caressed and bent the strings
of his vast array
of guitars to generate some of the most memorable blues I’ve ever heard,
never once
letting his expertise eclipse the spirit of the songs. His vocals were
superb.
He sang the old standards of the genre about sorrow, hardship and lonely
nights
with spine-tingling conviction and the haunting lyrics of Crow Blues,
written by long-time collaborator Terry Clarke, will stay with me
forever.
But we were never in danger of getting bogged down in the Delta swamps.
Whenever we felt ourselves slipping under we were rescued by
foot-stomping
versions of songs like Write Me A Few Short Lines or the very familiar
Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms, and his inclination to mix his blues
with
more contemporary sounds of Hawaiian, jazz and rock meant that the
evening was a revelation to all.
Jackie Larmour - Aldershot News - February 2004
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